One area that was another challenge was the shovel. Here I had to scratch build the mount for it as the kit part just basically has it lying flat on the hull. The actual shovel mount had legs on the part that holds the head of shovel in place and a raised pedestal approximately half way down the shovel that held the clamp. I used some bits of Photo etch I had from another Tiger PE set to reproduce this feature.
During my clean up of the sledge hammer to remove the molded on clamps I managed to snap it in two. Undaunted, I grabbed some 1.2 mm plastic rod and sanded it down on two sides to give it a flatter appearance. Next, I drilled out a hole in the head of the sledge then carved out the area in the shape I needed for the shaft and fixed the new handle to the head. A quick and fairly simple fix. For the bolt cutters there was no way I was going to be able to remove the molded on clamps without destroying the part so I snipped off the end where the locking arm goes, cleaned it up and added said locking arm to the part. The kit part does not give you the the retaining loop that the bolt cutters slide into so I made this with some lead foil.
For the cleaning rods and tow cable mounts and the tow cables themselves, the kit gives you the all in one version which is pretty much standard with most kits. I didn't like these as the detail was soft especially on the tow cables. In looking through the sprues I found that AFV Club gives you the individual mounts/brackets for the tow cables and cleaning rods. This was a nice surprise as I was planning on scratching my own. Definitely a time saver. You can see them in the pics below. Also, I discovered that I had a set of Eureka XXL Tiger I tow cables which I had purchased and forgot about a few years back. Because I had forgot about them I purchased a Griffon set which also comes with the brass cleaning rods. So, no need to scratch the cleaning rods, another time saver. Of course both sets have the track changing cables as well which is nice.
Tiger 211 did not have its head lamp in place in the pictures of the actual vehicle so I am leaving it off. I punched a disc out from plastic card with my punch and die set to replicate the lamp socket. The lamp conduit is from lead wire. As you can see it has a distinct loop that clears the top of the armour plate. A number of models I have seed have this conduit flush with the top of the armor plate which was not the case. Finally, I added the camo net loops on the sides and rear of the hull.
The C-Clamps on German Tigers had two Butterfly nuts to secure and remove the clamp. Fortunately, I had some Bronco 1/35 German butterfly nuts so I used these on the top hull C-Clamp. I am going to add them to the rear C-Clamp as well. Didn't want to add them at this early stage as they would have probably broken off with all my rough handling of the model up to this point.
